Dispatch from the Future (3 page)

the beast, and they got married and then sailed

to an island, where he abandoned Ariadne in her sleep.

And when she woke she hanged herself. Why

did she hang herself? And if I find the reason am I

less susceptible? Both unanswerable questions, and

yet I still go home with him, submit to a strange

bed in which I lay awake all night, without him,

listening to the restless pacing of something familiar

in the room beneath us, the haunt I cannot kill.

We stretched a ladder between our second-story

windows and tried to get the dog to go

across to see if it would hold but it didn’t.

My ambivalence must have made the dog fall, I

called across to him. He picked up his tin can

and said, I can’t hear you unless you speak

into the tin cans, remember? What did you just

say?
Sono spiacente
, I said. Nevermind.
Slicha
.

You are probably wondering now if the dog’s okay,

but do you think you could stay with me, anyway,

even if I never gave you the answer? This was

so long ago, further back than yesterday,

when you and I spoke for the last time. You said,

Why did you leave so early? And I said I couldn’t

sleep and you asked me why I didn’t tell you

at the time; you would have hit me on the head

with something hard. Let me ask you, could you

imagine a cloudless sky above a Nebraska plain?

Could you draw it? Could you imagine yellow birds?

Could you visualize the soft sound a door

makes when it closes and sticks and I thought I

had problems, but seriously, look at yourself.

Look. I had this incredible dream last night

and I’m not even going to tell you about it.

In Russia, the young girls who die violent deaths

either end up like birds in Pushkin or like fish

at the bottom of lakes, where they comb each other’s

hair all night long, where they teach each other

the lyrics to every Talking Heads song

so they can lure sailors into their shadowy grottoes

and drown them. They say there once was a rusalka

who wished to be human so badly she gave up

her voice to be with her beloved and of course

he loved her because who wouldn’t love a girl

who can’t talk back, but then one night

at a masked ball he got distracted by a foreign princess

with an elegant neck and the rusalka was so despondent

she went to a witch and somehow communicated, I’ve

never been so unhappy in my whole life. What should I do?

And of course the witch told her to stab him with a dagger,

and of course the rusalka considered it. Like, seriously?

Seriously stab him with a dagger? But ultimately she

decided she would rather lose her human life and

go back to being an underwater death demon.

At least in the opera version the prince realizes

his terrible mistake and goes hunting for a doe

only to find the rusalka in her last moments and

kisses her knowing it means death and eternal

damnation. Here I am now, watching the moonlight

dance across the water in the retention pond, staring

at this scalpel and trying to forget your address.

Weather: hot. Health: fair.

Dear Diary, had to leave the baby

behind because she wouldn’t eat.

Sent Jon out to shoot a buffalo,

but he said they all looked so peaceful

he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

Figures. We’ll all be dead soon

enough. Waiting for the Indian

to get here so we can cross

the river. June 15, 1848.

Weather: still hot. Health: same.

Dear Diary, Chastity’s doll

drowned. She wanted to dive

in after it, but I reminded her

that she doesn’t know how to swim.

Dove in anyway. Another one lost.

Jon says he’ll skin us a buffalo

so we have something to eat, but

only if the buffalo has recently

died of natural causes. Get

a grip, Jon, I told him.

June 16: wagon broke.

Eating wild blackberries while

we wait for another wagon

party to come by and help.

Jon has gone off on his own

to meditate and ask forgiveness

of the earth. Prudence might

have dysentery. Figures.

June 17: Some days

I feel like I’m just a character

in a game played by a sick,

sick person, who has sent me

on this journey only to kill all

my loved ones along the way.

June 18: help came, but

in the night they stole our oxen.

Guess we’ll just have to walk

to Oregon now. Are you there,

God? It’s me, Mary Jane.

Send me some oxen and

a son who likes to shoot things.

June 19: Lost Prudence

to dysentery. Should we

eat her? Tough question.

June 20: Another river!

You have got to be kidding!

June 21: Managed to swim

across with diary on top

of my head so it wouldn’t

get wet. Jon and I have found

a tribe of Indians who will let us

stay with them. At least,

we think that’s what they said.

We don’t speak their language.

They seem to have indicated that

tonight we must follow them,

blindfolded, into a grove of trees,

and in the addled darkness our

dead will return and speak to us.

Count back by sevens beginning with the last number

you remember. I’ll wait, said the Serbian Jew to the lame girl

who blushed at her wet shoes. West 72nd Street was a puddle

from Broadway to the Hudson and the traffic came and returned.

In Brooklyn you could lie in the street in front of the hospital

and not die. Sixty-three, she said, like a question of him.

For the last eleven hours I had worn a feathered headband

and taken dictation from a woman in Utah. I wanted

to know what had happened to the girl’s leg, but I was also

thirsty. He had to know. If I were him I’d ask her every day.

The night the circus marches the elephants through midtown,

the girl would say, have you ever been? Yes, I would say,

once. Well, she would say. No. Yes. No. She might say

it wasn’t an accident. Pretend to hold a knife in your hand

and people will think it’s your own. Her cane was on my foot,

but I stood still. Fifty-six and forty-nine. If she had picked

a larger number to begin with, I could have stood with the cane

on my foot forever. I was so cold then; I wore so many hats.

Can I get you something? His yarmulke was secured to his head

with gold hairpins. No, I said. I don’t know what I want, I said.

The girl stopped counting and apologized for her cane. Don’t

apologize, I said. Please, I said. It was a lion, she said. Forty-two,

I said, right? It was a land mine. I didn’t ask, I said. It was my mother,

she said, in our bathroom. Thirty-five? It was me. I did it. It was me.

Good news: you still won’t leave your wife for me,

but there is a horse tethered to the scaffolding

in front of my building and I think he might be mine.

Stealing horses means never having to say I love you,

are you as awake as I am, will you pat my head or

something. Stealing horses means never having to ask

to be asked what you’re thinking. Like now, for example,

when all I can think of is this neighborhood boy named

Morris, the one I can see from my window at night;

he asked me today what the horse’s name was

and I said I’m afraid to name him in case he dies

and the boy said, It’s like in those books with dogs

where you know something bad will happen and

I said, Exactly. He asked if we could go for a ride.

This is a stolen horse, I said, possibly from upstate.

I said I didn’t know if it would be safe, but I

invited him up to my fire escape and we let our legs

hang off the edge and watched the ferryboats

in the harbor until dusk and the water darkened.

Have you always lived on this island?, I said,

pretending I didn’t see he had a bruise on his arm,

and Morris said, I have a bruise on my arm, and I

said, Can I do anything?, and he said, When you’re

at the museum are you ever afraid of falling

through the railings they have around the balconies?

I nodded. There is a cautionary tale about a woman

and a boy who comes to her birthday party to tell her

he is her husband who died in the park and by the time

she believes him he says nevermind. Morris, I said,

I think terrible thoughts about those that I love.

i

In Philadelphia, a dying woman wants to know

a seven letter word for “don’t look back.”

Does it have to be in English?, her daughter

asks. Why, she says, what are you thinking?

I think it is seventy degrees in Alaska today.

Last night I went to a party to find a lawyer

to support me for the next thirty-seven years or so

or, if not a lawyer, at least someone to spend all these

relentless hours with me while I measure the rising

temperature of the sea. Do you want to know

what I do with these measurements?, I asked

one of my prospects. He didn’t say he didn’t, so

I told him I tear them into tiny pieces and make

papier-mâché masks of all my friends which end

up looking more like ducks or bears than people faces,

but at least I am doing my part in all this.

He said, I’m not actually a lawyer. I run a hotline

for people who live alone. You can call in the morning

and tell your dream to a machine. I can?, I said. Sure,

he said, and that’s when I knew who to follow.

ii

This book I’m reading says I should set one small goal each day.

Yesterday I got out of bed like there was no tomorrow.

Today I may call you just to hear how you answer.

This book says I shouldn’t have unrealistic expectations,

like the woman in the parable of the woman who was killed

by the serpent on her wedding day did. One day

she was running happily through a meadow and she thought

her whole life would be just like that, a handful of violets,

but as we know now anything that is too good to be true

is probably about to be bit by a serpent. Her husband

followed her to the underworld but couldn’t bring her back,

didn’t trust she’d follow. It was like she wanted to stay.

But I plan on leaving. I have been completing the last

of the crossword puzzles and taking a lot of hot baths.

I would love to come back as a faucet. Or a radiator or an ice

cube tray shaped like a dozen little fish. Everybody loves those.

But meanwhile I will follow you back from wherever

you find me. In the deepest valley. At the dreadful shore.

At the end of the world I want to be in Reykjavik together,

watching the long dark night break down our door.